Monday, 24 September 2012

The Unforgotten Few #2 - Peter Pea & Friends

In year six of primary school, my class was asked to produce
a short story in preparation for our SAT exams. I sat down, thought about the
assignment, and created ‘Peter Pea’ – an eleven year old boy, just like me, but
with a rebellious streak – he had bright green hair!!

My 11-year old self deemed this character a success, and I
created a series of one page short stories based on the adventures of Peter Pea – that chronicled Peter’s
teenage years.

Now, reading these stories back they are, to put it
politely… very short. Maybe a couple of lines of dialogue wrapped around a few
more lines of action. Stories were loose, and the characters virtually one
dimensional.

I didn’t realise this at the time, however. I thought they
were the best I could do (and they probably were) – but that didn’t stop me
from wanting to push myself further, and develop longer stories and situations
for these characters. Occasionally at the bottom of the one page stories, I’d
draw an advert for a spin-off adventure, that I would describe as “feature
length” (whatever that would have meant). Needless to say, not a single one of
these “feature length” stories were ever written.

Below is a list of the projects I wrote down in my “Peter Pea” notebooks – which include its
spin-offs Peter in the USA, Adam & Iris, Graham, Camper – Space Alien
& Life.

1: Before Peter or
Peter: The Early Years

This would have told the ‘thrilling’ adventure of the first
10 years of Peter’s life. Potentially how his parents met, and the reason why
they left their old lives behind, to move to Blackmore (an area of London where
the characters relocate to in the first Peter Pea adventure)

It’s possible my brain ached to write this because, at the
time, I had no idea what being a teenager was like. I struggled to imagine the
road teenage Peter had ahead of him – but I could picture perfectly what sort
of childhood he likely had.

Nothing beyond an advert for this series was produced.

I guess it became abandoned when I’d written so many Peter
adventures set in the present, I just couldn’t be arsed going back into the
past. So me just being lazy!

As the below advert shows, when I decided against writing it
as a series, I advertised a one off adventure – “Love in the 80s”. Not a word
of this ever touched paper!

2: Stars & Stripes

An adventure in America with Peter’s uncle Homer.

Interestingly, in the advert I produced, it states that the
adventure would have focused around Homer. This would have made him the first
central character in the Peter universe to be an adult, and not a child.

I’ve no idea what would have happened in the adventure. I
don’t think I ever knew.

Eventually Peter would move to the USA himself, and his
adopted brother’s uncle Adam would have a series based around him, in
Australia. So I eventually, sorta, kinda, fulfilled this special’s M.O.

3: The Nappy Days

A Graham special – bridging the gap between its third and
fourth series.

It would have dealt with the birth of Graham’s new brothers
& sisters – who are triplets!

Again, beyond a name, nothing was written.

I’ve no idea why it didn’t come to pass. I think it’s a
combination of that old sin, laziness, and my over-stretching ambition.

4: Mum’s Life

When Peter’s mum Dot succumbs to cancer at the end of series
7, a whopping half a page is dedicated to her passing.

Realising there was still some way to go to mark the
occasion properly, I advertised a special, detailing a full length version of
her death.

Morbid stuff.

Not a word of it was ever written, or plotted.

5: Peter in the USA
– The Musical

Inspired by Joss Whedon’s brilliant “Once More With Feeling”
on Buffy, I decided to mimic my idol my writing a musical episode of my own.

This one actually did
get a little into development, back in 2002/3. I wrote the beginnings of a song
called “Peter & Chloe” (Chloe being Peter’s then girlfriend). I have a
vague recollection of the opening lyrics being “Peter and Chloe, it’s time to
wake up and face the world…” but I’m not sure if the latter half of that
sentence is my brain playing tricks on me or not.

There was also an attempt at a scene breakdown made, but I’m
not sure how far or how detailed that got (my records for this episode now
destroyed).

I would have written it as an actual script, instead of the
prose I’d been writing up to that point. If I had gone through with the
project, it would have been my first ever script.

Alas, I carried on writing Peter in the USA’s standards
episodes – and eventually this was so out of date that it wasn’t relevant
anymore, so the idea was shelved.

6: Graham – The
Comeback

Although the special never had a title, it was indeed a
comeback for Graham, as the series ended in 2003, with its central character
leaving home, on the verge of a breakdown.

This would have dealt with what happened next for him.

There were vague ideas written down about him returning in a
hippy van, if I recall. He’d have got back with his girlfriend, who he left at
the end of the series, and we’d have seen him start afresh with his parents.

I have a feeling that I wrote the first page of this story;
but if I did it’s now lost to time forever.

In some ways I’m glad I never went back to the series. It’s
probably one of the bravest endings I’ve written for a series. Such a downer!

We needn’t know more about Graham’s story.

7: Hot Shot!

A few years after In concluded Peter in the USA, I still
hadn’t learnt my lesson! I sat and plotted several spin-offs from the series,
all detailing life post-series.

The only one I can still remember (and the only one I made
any attempt on writing) being Dice – the story of Dice, one of Peter’s old
friends from Washington, now trying to make a life for himself in LA as a
Hollywood big shot.

2 pages were produced, of something I estimated would take
up 40 pages. But I didn’t plan ahead – so I’ve no idea what would have happened
after those 2 pages finished.

They were good, I remember – but I destroyed the pages when
I cleared out my old bedroom at Mum’s, in preparation for moving to London.

This was the last special I attempted to produce for any
Peter Pea series.

The Peter Pea universe was, by that stage (2006/7/8) drawing
to a close…

Still, from my 23-year old perspective, these specials are a
wonderful ‘what-if?’ They are an expansion on a few series in desperate need of
something more.

There’s no telling what would have happened to my writing if
only I’d taken the plunge this early on, and tried something daring – and
succeeded.

NEXT TIME I’ll discuss two Peter Pea spin-offs – Foreign
Devils & Camper Space Alien, and some ideas I had for both that never came
to fruition, for various reasons.